16.09.24, Mordechai Kremnitzer, Haaretz
It turns out that the Gazans who aren’t involved in the fighting aren’t alone in their potential for being used by the Israel Defense Forces for combat purposes. A support group has been found for them in the guise of asylum seekers from Africa, who are persuaded and exploited by unidentified security personnel to contribute to the Israeli war effort.
The organizing principle at the basis of the founding and existence of the State of Israel is the Zionist idea. According to it, in the State of Israel, the Jewish people are realizing their right to national self-definition. This is a highly justified principle, especially in light of Jewish history. It’s recognized by the international community – as long as it doesn’t involve denial of the parallel right of the Palestinian people to a state alongside Israel.
However, over the years, and especially after the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and turning them into sites of Jewish domination and expansionism at the expense of the population living there, its fulfillment has acquired a whiff of racism. This whiff turned into a strong stench with the legislation of the Basic Law on the Nation-State, which assumes and even clearly expresses Jewish supremacy.
The High Court of Justice didn’t understand the full significance and negative implications of statements with a symbolic meaning, or perhaps it was unable to help. In any case, the law was left in place, and only one justice, George Kara, who is Arab, managed to provide a worthy legal analysis, to the effect that this law should be invalidated.
This bad smell has received an upgrade, to the point that a skunk is perfume compared to it, with the addition to the government of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and their friends in key positions, and the maximal use they’re making of this law, which for them is optimal and for us is the worst thing possible.
Israel’s handling of the issue of asylum seekers has been tainted by racism from its inception, at least from the time when it became clear that as opposed to the scare campaign that was conducted, the numbers aren’t large. Referring to asylum seekers as a cancer, the false claims that they were spreading epidemics and posed a risk to state security, are examples of classical racist incitement.
As opposed to the government’s obligation based on international law and Israeli law, Israel is systematically refraining from deciding on the requests for asylum. The absence of a decision enables Israel to “brag” about the small number of requests that have been approved, which presumably indicates the asylum seekers aren’t entitled to asylum. In the absence of a decision, there is no possibility of a negative decision, even for those who aren’t entitled to asylum because they aren’t in danger of persecution.
The issue could have reached an acceptable solution after an agreement was concluded between the government and the United Nations, but the ones who really rule in Israel aren’t its leaders, but rather the social media commentators whose negative reactions motivated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to withdraw his consent to it. Netanyahu is not a real leader who deals with problems and finds solutions for them, but rather a flaccid leader who is led by incited and inciting masses.
In this case, the social media commentators understood better than Netanyahu the potential for racist incitement available when there is no decision on asylum requests, a potential that when realized can even be a ticket to the Knesset. The fact that many Israelis were themselves refugees or are descendants of refugees (full disclosure – I’m one of them) and because of that suffered from the iron fist of racists and so-called patriots (which was a central reason for the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention) – was of no avail.
The policy was dictated by the idea of a country inhabited only by Jews, cleansed of non-Jews. Clearly, the color black worked to the detriment of the asylum seekers (as can be seen in the treatment of Ethiopian Jews). But even non-Jewish white Ukrainians (those not entitled to citizenship by dint of the Law of Return) who fled from the war were humiliated and expelled.
And now we’ve found that illegal conduct not only exists undisturbed and unprotested, but that it also bears fruit. It enables us to convince suitable asylum seekers to serve in the army. Those whose request to volunteer to serve alongside their Israeli friends was turned down by the IDF, have become, due to our present hard times, subjects for IDF temptation to do military service; and we can assume that it isn’t in the IDF Chaplaincy, Education Corps or office jobs.
When illegal conduct is exploited and used as a means of pressuring people who are dependent on the government’s good graces – even if it isn’t a criminal offense, it’s definitely morally objectionable. If it’s someone who is eligible for asylum, the compensation offered him for his military service isn’t real compensation at all. They promise to give him what’s coming to him in any case, but which they are arbitrarily denying him. And who can guarantee that the promise will be kept? Anyone whose fate is in the hands of a hardhearted Israeli government and who agrees to such an offer – it’s very doubtful if his agreement can be seen as freely given.
And if it isn’t freely given, of what value is it? In a law-abiding country, nobody would dream that an arrangement of that kind exists without a legal foundation approved by authorized bodies. They tell us that legal advisers were in on the secret. That isn’t comforting at all. Today’s legal advice isn’t what it used to be; and what adviser would have the heart to say no to something presented as an important security need? In any case, that doesn’t provide a solution to the major ethical dilemma.
As long as the present government is in power, as long as this coalition exists, there’s a regular injection of racist poison into the veins of Israeli society. The greatest fear is of a profound change taking place in society (in each and every one of us), without our being entirely aware of it.
The fact that together with this recruitment of asylum seekers we’re being informed about a new draft evasion law, which under a cover of deception will in effect exempt Torah scholars from real military service, indicates the nadir to which we’ve arrived. It would be preferable for the legal advisers to demand that the government observe the High Court orders on this subject, rather than abetting odious arrangements.
The longer Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are in charge of national security and the West Bank, the longer it will be impossible to trust that decisions on security matters aren’t biased by personal and political-party considerations, and the less motivation there will be to serve in the army, the less willingness there will be to risk one’s life for fear that the risk isn’t justified. In that case, the day will come when we hear about mercenaries in charge of Israel’s security, under cover of legal advice.
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